As businesses start to reopen in nearly every state, leaders face difficult decisions around how to create an environment in which employees and customers are not only physically safe but also feel comfortable enough to return.

A challenge with this is that many of the most effective actions businesses can take to protect employees and customers aren’t easily visible, and therefore may not on their own translate to helping people feel more comfortable. Customers generally don’t see a plane or hotel room being cleaned, nor are they watching their food get prepared in a restauraunt. That’s why detailing and communicating all COVID-19 health processes – including those that may not be visible – is critical for any business welcoming back employees or customers.

And while media attention naturally gravitates toward the sci-fi-esque technology claiming to blast away COVID-19, our research shows that some of the simplest actions, such as offering free masks and hand sanitizer, have the biggest impact on perceived safety.

 

Q: Some businesses are investing in health and safety measures to keep their employees and customers safe when they reopen. Please rate each of the following precautions on how they would make you feel when entering a business with other people.

 

But what makes people feel safe does not always translate to what will ensure their physical safety.

That’s okay, as long as those actions are part of a broader plan that does protect physical health. Consider temperature checks. Many businesses are investing in technology solutions to enable contactless temperature checking and companies are rising to meet the new demand. One such company is IntraEdge, which just launched a self-check temperature kiosk in late May.

Purple’s Pulse Survey survey finds required temperature screenings would make 58% of people more comfortable or feel totally safe going to a business. But how would checking the temperature of everyone who enters a business stack up on actual safety?

March WHO data show 80% of COVID-19 cases are mild or asymptomatic. While the technology is able to identify those exhibiting fever symptoms, it is ineffective against the larger share of asymptomatic cases.

Dan Clarke, president of IntraEdge products and solutions, recognizes this fact, and describes its kiosk as just “one piece of the puzzle” for states’ reopening. While the puzzle piece of identifying and stopping those symptomatic cases from spreading is indeed an important one, businesses that fail to recognize and enforce the others needed to protect people’s health can do more harm than good. If people aren’t properly educated about the constellation of actions needed to protect their safety, it can feed a false sense of security that emboldens them to neglect vital complementary precautions.

While both physical safety and perceived safety are important for businesses, “safety theater” is what happens when they get the balance wrong.

What is ‘safety theater’?

Safety theater is when a company takes performative steps to provide the feeling of improved safety, but without doing enough to ensure it physically.

Some bad actors may intentionally lure customers and employees back to an unsafe environment; however, it’s far more likely that well intentioned companies and brands will inadvertently take the safety theater’s stage.

Intentions aside, participating in safety theater can have serious consequences. Above all else, it jeopardizes the health and safety of employees and customers. Doing so can also have material reputation ramifications, however, including undermining a company’s credibility, diminishing trust, and contributing to the perception that they are putting profits over people.

As companies’ response to COVID-19 continues under the microscope, missteps won’t just affect those interacting with the company directly. Stakeholders are ready to hold companies accountable for perceived missteps, and social and traditional media can easily amplify the voice of even a few critical onlookers.

Selling ‘safety theater’

After 9/11, an entire industry was built seemingly overnight to protect physical spaces from a safety and security threat. Similarly, in the face of COVID-19, countless companies have begun marketing their solutions to keep people safe and allow businesses to reopen.

Another technology gaining interest is UV light walkthroughs, which purport to kill germs on those who pass through them and would make most people (58%) more comfortable entering a business. While businesses may be well intentioned in investing in this technology, it falls short of stopping the spread of potentially dangerous germs once people have entered a controlled space. If reliance on this technology causes employees and customers to overlook other important protocols, the effects of the measure can actually be counterproductive.

How can leaders avoid the safety theater trap?

First and foremost, follow advice of health experts. Health experts and organizations are not only the most qualified to provide proper guidance, but stakeholders also view them as the most credible. Following their lead on protocols that have been proven most effective – and adapting your policies to new information – may turn off a small group of vocal customers in the short term, but will protect your long-term business and reputation.

Implement COVID-19 health guidelines, and communicate regularly and transparently. Making changes to your business like providing health shields for customers and sharing detailed and clear health guidelines can go a long way to make people feel safe and prevent further spread of the disease. In doing so, recognize that no single measure will offer complete protection, and always communicate where there may be deficiencies.

Don’t ignore onlookers. What’s theater without an audience? Remember your actions have visibility beyond those with whom you’re engaging directly. Proactively communicate through channels that inform in-person audiences as well as those watching the show remote.

 

Purple Pulse Survey of the US Informed Public. N=834. June 10-13, 2020.

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By Diana Muggeridge | diana.muggeridge@purplestrategies.com

Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for the future that will come after, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to author Diana Muggeridge or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

What it means

COVID-19 and the challenges it poses to governments, companies and individuals around the world are often described as “unprecedented.” But one much-covered angle of the larger COVID-19 story is not only not unprecedented, it was utterly predictable. And that’s the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation we’ve seen swirling over the last several months.

I say “utterly predictable” because we see this phenomenon routinely with major news events, and particularly in times of disaster or crisis when people are starved for the latest information. Misinformation is created (whether it’s done with good intentions or bad isn’t so important), spreads rapidly and then has its impact, whether it’s people refusing vaccinations or other medical treatment or believing, despite the obvious implausibility, that the coronavirus-imposed quarantine has allowed dolphins to “return” to the canals of Venice.

Companies and organizations often fall prey to misinformation. We’re seeing it now. The Gates Foundation was accused in January of “patenting” the coronavirus by a Twitter personality with 150,000 followers. 5G cell phone technology also became a magnet for misinformation. What started as a post on an anonymously run blog morphed into an incoherent global narrative about how 5G was somehow connected to coronavirus deaths. And it ultimately led militant conspiracy theorists to set fire to Vodafone cell towers in the UK.

These are extreme situations for sure. But most companies have to fight misinformation every day, whether defending themselves from claims that they’re harming consumers with a dangerous product ingredient or having their motives questioned when critics surface out-of-context documents and distort their message and meaning.

And though it rarely if ever solves the problem, the corporate playbook with regard to combatting misinformation is usually the same: Get the facts out. Make our voice heard. If only people knew the truth, they’d see things our way and the misinformation would stop.

The reason this approach seldom works is rooted in psychology.

Belief formation is not as conscious a process as we like to think it is. Many decisions we make about what to believe or not are made instantaneously, driven by instinct, intuition and past experience. So many people on the receiving end of misinformation have already formed their beliefs by the time companies reach them with the facts, and they don’t think they need to be corrected. They’re not in search of the truth, seeking out different sides of the story and coming to thoughtful conclusions. They’ve found the truth. And though that “truth” may be inaccurate or misguided or even irrational, it doesn’t matter. Largely because of confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias leads us to believe in ideas, concepts, information we receive that we want to be true. And this is true of even the smartest and most scientifically literate among us. We’re motivated more by our subconscious wishful thinking than we are by facts or data. And that means that once we’ve formed a belief, it’s pretty likely we’ll stop looking for new evidence, particularly evidence that would refute what we now know to be true. People believe that 5G is linked to the coronavirus because it aligns with what they want to be true (believing in a salacious conspiracy theory can be fun, so long as you aren’t burning down cell towers) and what they know to be true (companies can’t be trusted and advanced technology like 5G must have come with downsides). Try as a company might, a whitepaper alone can’t refute such deeply held beliefs.

So what does this mean? How should we respond? Axios recently published a thoughtful piece that offers some ideas, though many of them depend on companies being proactive and “pre-bunking” rather than debunking myths and misinformation. Useful advice, if a company has the foresight to recognize the real harm misinformation can do. Most of the time though, companies are too late and find themselves on the defense, trying to swat down individual news stories and tweets and losing the forest through the trees.

The truth is, there are no easy answers to this problem, one that will only grow worse in our inter-connected world where misinformation increasingly gets the same shot as information at informing and reinforcing our beliefs. We have had some hard-fought successes tackling this challenge for individual clients, but it became apparent that we needed an enterprise-level commitment. That is why before COVID, we invested in a cross-disciplinary team tasked with writing the new playbook on fighting back.

At our core, Purple is about blending different perspectives and thinking to plot the best path forward. So in addition to leveraging the skills of a range of Purple expertise leaders, we’ll continue to collaborate with experts across academia, industry, public policy and tech. And we’re investing in new research to continue to test ways to better combat misinformation. Over the coming months, we look forward to sharing our learnings with you.

 

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By Alec Jacobs | Senior Director | alec.jacobs@purplestrategies.com

Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the impacts of misinformation and disinformation, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to author Alec Jacobs or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

 

What it means

There’s plenty of literature about planning the “first 100 days” in your new job, but none that accounts for an overlap with a global pandemic. I hit that 100-day milestone in my new role as head of communications, marketing and engagement at Purple on day 25 of social distancing during the COVID-19 crisis.

It’s been a unique experience, trying to build something new with a company while the world feels like it’s falling apart. Instead of marking the 10th anniversary of Purple and its new brand and sharing stories from the team’s success, which was a key focus of the original 100-day plan, we’ve been retooling our business together day by day, and week by week, so our teams have what they need to support Purple clients in preparing for and navigating the immense changes they face – and feel supported themselves as they navigate the changes in their own lives.

I can’t say that creating a pandemic roadmap to add to the “first 100 days” literature was something we set out to do. But I can say we’ve taken steps that are proving to be successful at this moment. The culture built here over 10 years, that I learned in person for 45 days, and that we’ve been adapting every day since, has positioned our company and team to navigate this change as best as we could hope for, under the circumstances. To the extent that it might be helpful to anyone else managing these times as a communicator or leader, I wanted to share some of the ways we’ve been navigating it all.

(1) Keep leaders accessible.

During normal times, Purple’s COO and operations team hold a joint open office hours every other week as a standing opportunity for any employee to drop in to ask questions, discuss issues, provide feedback, suggest new ideas, and just in general have an audience with the person running the business day to day. Since this crisis began, our leader doubled down: these open office hours now happen weekly, and virtually. People videoconference in with their morning coffee in hand and talk about what’s happening with clients, what’s happening in our homes, what has us worried and what has us laughing. At a time when there might be more questions than answers, some leaders might be tempted to limit these types of activities in favor of more controlled formats. Don’t. Keep your leaders accessible, and if you are a leader, BE accessible. Your employees need to see you now more than ever.

(2) Communicate frequently and transparently.

We’re on week eight of having at least one COVID-related, all-staff communication per week, which are then reinforced on client teams, in group meetings, and during 1:1 check-ins. Beginning the first week of March, these communications covered new cleaning procedures and reminders to stay home when sick, then moved on to suspending work travel and mobilizing all staff for extended, fully remote work. Next were “abundance of caution” notifications of potential exposures we’d learned about, and how we were going to keep our culture alive while physically apart. Then we moved into messages starting to discuss openly the difficult decisions we’re having to make and the longer-term business realities from which no businesses are immune. We’ve had messages that bring levity and some that bring a gut-punch, but they’re frequent, authentic, and candid. It might be tempting to go silent when you don’t have good news to share or all the answers to deliver, but that approach will not work right now. No one expects their leaders to know what the outcome will be, but they do expect to know the inputs – what actions you are taking. And they want to know they can trust you to be honest and clear.

(3) Embrace humanity.

For years organizational culture people have been advocating for making work more human. The sudden, forced integration of our working and non-working lives has put these issues into stark relief. Overnight, many of the responsibilities we shoulder outside our office walls have shown up on Zoom and BlueJeans screens for our colleagues to see. One of our first cultural expectations we set for this time is that there is no reason to hide these responsibilities. We encouraged our team to re-design their own personal work day as needed – however unconventional that needed to look – to time block for child care, elder care, home schooling, dog-walking, personal fitness, mental health breaks or whatever personal responsibilities that now need to be addressed differently in this new environment. And we encouraged the free sharing of this information among teams and on Slack statuses. It’s common now to see laundry-folding, kid-hair-brushing and baby-handoffs during calls – this is encouraged and modeled from the very top of our company, and our team members feel more supported and less anxious because of it. It is critically important that you visibly embrace your humanity right now, especially if you are a leader. Don’t be a work-life ninja. By openly modeling your work-life integration, you give your team permission to do the same. 

(4) Adapt meaningfully and apply new learning quickly.

One of the things that became clear fast during my 45 days in person is that Purple people love meetings. These aren’t the meetings you hear about in office jokes and memes and “shoulda been an email” comments; these are meetings that have meaning. Whether it’s a blue sky ideas session, a targeted brainstorm, or an insights workshop, meetings at Purple are not a spectator sport – engagement is essential. So when many of our colleagues were suddenly having to run pandemic home schools during the hours when they were used to being fully free to engage in these meetings, we quickly and collectively knew we needed to adapt our approach to meetings. Our client teams each circled their wagons to reassess and scale back the number of meetings on the group calendar and worked to free up blocks of time for team members to do uninterrupted work. Our in-house brainstorm and meeting facilitation experts rallied to develop and roll out best practices for virtual meetings in the current climate. And a few weeks into our new work-from-home arrangements, we hosted a virtual happy hour to share best practices across teams and workshop even more ideas for adapting campaign, project and team management in this environment. Even the strongest or best-loved elements of your work culture might need to change right now to accommodate new workplace realities. Tap into your teams’ experiences and insights to experiment, assess, adapt and reset. The adaptations you make now don’t have to become permanent if you don’t want or need them to – by definition, we’re in an in-between state. Stay open and flexible to evolution and new possibilities.

(5) Build culture constantly.

In addition to their love of meetings (as explained above), Purple people love being around Purple people. I didn’t need all 45 in-person days to learn this; I learned it day 1. And as a student of organizational culture, I love it. People eat lunch together, serve on committees together, plan happy hours and book clubs together, do improv comedy together, travel to all the NCAA Final Fours together – in short, the fabric of Purple is woven tightly. Anyone lucky enough to be part of a company culture like this, knows that the physical distancing of this pandemic time period was a shock to the system. But this team didn’t miss a beat. Everyone owns culture at Purple, so everyone has been part of the solution. New Slack channels have emerged to replace some of the informal connections, and chatter on existing channels has increased. After 10 years of gathering in person, we held our first-ever, all-virtual, all-staff meeting. We started an “At Home With Purple” employee profile series, each day sharing little-known details about one colleague’s life at home. We’ve joined one virtual happy hour to discuss the Fyre Festival, one happy hour to discuss Tiger King, and a host of others, just to keep connections alive. Every company culture is different, and each one is precious. During this relentless change, do everything you can to keep yours alive. Let your “how” shift and adapt as needed, but keep your “why” sacred. It doesn’t show up on a financial statement or dashboard, but it will be one of the most valuable assets you’ll have when we emerge on the other side of these challenges. 

My new colleagues have spent the bulk of my first 100 days at Purple focused on helping our clients to prepare for and manage the most significant change of their lifetimes, while I’ve been working with our team to do the same on behalf of Purple. We haven’t gotten everything right, but I hope what we’ve learned might help someone else as they chart a course through their next 100 days.

(A version of this article first appeared on LinkedIn)

 

We talk about change a lot here at Purple, mostly with our clients, but also with our colleagues. Why? Because in today’s volatile landscape, all brands and corporations must be adequately equipped to handle change. We partner with our clients to help them prepare for change, manage change when it’s thrust upon them, and compel change of their own.

What does this mean during this time when we are all witnessing an unprecedented rate of immense change? It means we are supporting our clients and colleagues in any way that we can. It means keeping a finger on the pulse of what and how society is doing, tracking larger geopolitical and societal trends and motivations, tapping into our network of partners, and much more.

As we reflect on our past 10 years as Purple and look ahead to the next 10, we’ve taken a page out of our own playbook and reinvented our brand to better align with who we are today. Our new logo features a stylized P made up of three pathways, each one emblematic of Purple’s approach to helping clients prepare for, manage, and compel change.

We couldn’t have imagined how profound a role change would be playing across all aspects of life today – or predicted that change would be defining the new normal both professionally and personally in all of our futures. As paths ahead become less clear, and we continue to examine our response and rebound from this global moment of change, we’ll continue to move forward with our clients, navigating these unique and uncertain pathways together.

During Women’s History Month each year, our team celebrates the women of Purple and honors their contributions that make our firm the special place that it is. This March hasn’t gone like any of us had planned, anywhere – events and activities canceled and our full team working from home to do our part to #FlattenTheCurve – so we’re navigating through the change and approaching this year’s celebration of women another way. 

As a firm that partners with clients on strategy around their reputation, we were curious to learn more about the reputations of the women of Purple. So we gathered some internal data, and what we learned was clear: This is a perfect time to highlight and celebrate these professionals as they lead their clients, communities and families through the complex changes ahead.

From a safe social distance, we present the reputations of a cross-section of the impressive women who make Purple – Purple.

Her extreme skill at drilling down deep to understand the most challenging issues facing clients is just the beginning. Purple people can’t say enough about Caroline Sage.

An experienced researcher, field organizer, political campaigner and corporate strategist, Chinasa Onukwubiri brings lessons from her work around the globe to clients and causes.

Building on earlier work in politics and campaigns, Crystal Benton develops strategies to enhance and protect reputation, influence policy debates, and drive business growth. Serving strategy always.

As MD of Insights Operations, Denise Brien leads teams in the design and implementation of research that delivers the powerful insights behind countless successful client campaigns. And those teams love her.

Our Diana Muggeridge is a campaign strategist who’s passionate about helping industry-leading organizations navigate challenges impacting their license to operate. Our team is passionate about how great she is.

There are few people as Purple as Elizabeth Emanuel. This near-lifer has held just about every role someone can hold at our firm – and done so fearlessly – and we’re grateful she chooses to call Purple home.

A former boss of Katie Pudwill once described her as the walking, talking embodiment of “North Dakota nice.” It was true when she was in politics and journalism, and it’s true today in her work with Purple. Love.

With broad issue-advocacy experience spanning agribusiness, energy and human rights, Keeley Hanlon has worked across the aisle to make the business case for social change. We see it as a bit of magic.

The brilliant Nicki Zink brings a uniquely valuable perspective, drawn from prior experience working in the non-profit sector and political journalism. The headline here is that Nicki is the best.

At Purple, Savannah Bailey works closely with clients to develop and execute campaigns to manage high-pressure issues. It’s why her ability to stay cool, calm and collected stands out.

A political polling expert and strategist who grew up in campaigns, Sarah Simmons learned how to relentlessly work a problem. Anything can be solved. That energy fuels the people around her.

Before navigating complex challenges for clients in industries from energy to education and labor to logistics, Tara Andersen dives into the research with glee. No wonder everyone wants her on their team.